The review ran as a front page item, which is rare for a book review. Are the editors at the Times trying to make a statement here or give a review?

Newsweek in “Bill’s Self-Portrait”:

In truth, it is hardly an edge-of-your-seat experience. Throughout its leisurely 957 pages, however, every facet of Clinton’s complex, nuanced and sometimes maddening personality is on display. He is by turns introspective and willfully obtuse, expansive and curt. One moment, he forces the reader on a joyless march through an arid policy debate.

The Associate Press was even more acidic in “Clinton’s ‘Life’ both too much, not enough”:

None of them comes alive, not even the main characters of this badly conceived, flatly written, poorly edited book. Not Hillary Rodham Clinton, who comes off as a cardboard saint who is said to be smart and tough and good. Not special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, the book’s villain, who comes off as pure evil – not really a human being at all, more of an incubus.

And not even Bill Clinton himself. Here is one of the most fascinating figures of his time, a charismatic and brilliant man – a fatherless boy who rose from humble beginnings to live, in his own words, “an improbable life” – and he has produced a book that lacks anything more than the most rudimentary insights. This master politician does not even offer a single good discussion of the art of politics.

All content distributed under fair use with proper attribution and protected by freedom of speech. We take all dmca/copyright claims seriously and disclose all communications in accordance with those rights. Comments owned by the poster, we cannot be held liable. Hammer of Truth is a registered trademark of liberty sucker, ʟʟᴄ2002-2006, 2010-2015